The Postal Service is now operating in the most complex and competitive business environment in our 200-plus year history, one that’s marked by uncertainty, ambiguity and change. Despite the difficulties this business environment presents, we’ve withstood every challenge because of strong leadership and committed employees.
Leadership Readiness — Like most federal agencies, a large number of our managers and senior leaders are eligible for retirement. To plan for the significant risk this poses, in FY2015 we moved to a continuous open season for Corporate Succession Planning (CSP), allowing necessary modifications and ongoing monitoring of our leadership pipeline. We also launched operations-focused leadership programs such as New Supervisor Program (NSP) and Managerial Essentials for Field Leadership (MEFL), and introduced Postmaster Essentials (PME). Also, our Executive Leadership Team demonstrated an unwavering commitment to employee engagement — and invested in creating engagement leaders and champions throughout the organization. Altogether, these efforts improve leadership readiness and support culture changes necessary for long-term success.
Our leadership development program achieved important outcomes in FY2015, including:
To prepare employees for career advancement, learning opportunities are available for officers, senior executives, executives, managers and supervisors. In FY2015, 1,475 individuals participated in a leadership development offering. The table that follows summarizes participants by program.
Innovative and Impactful Training Programs — In FY2015, the Postal Service invested in focused and in-depth training for our operations management team. The NSP, MEFL and PME programs not only help build our talent pipeline but also strengthen employees’ leadership, management and functional skills.
Customer service was another area of focus in FY2015. The NSP, MEFL and NSP programs include essential customer service training as these employees regularly interact with customers. In addition, the Postal Service deployed a nationwide classroom program called Deliver the Brand to 12,588 managers and retail associates. Its goal was to strengthen professionalism and improve the customer experience through training on topics that included image, customer perception and communication skills.
Protecting Employees’ Information — The Postal Service made significant improvements in FY2015 to its ability to defend against aggressive advanced persistent threats like the one that resulted in a cyber intrusion incident announced in November 2014. The Postal Service will continue to make significant investments over the next few years to improve these defense efforts. Protecting the privacy of customer, employee, supplier and corporate information has been and always will be a priority for the Postal Service.
This incident, along with many others that occurred in federal government and commercial entities during the year, demonstrates the need for ever greater comprehensive cyber security capabilities involving technology, people and processes to defend against threats, monitor systems for possible unauthorized access and eradicate intruders.
The Postal Service launched new cyber security improvement efforts in November 2014, in response to the cyber intrusion incident. Detailed remediation activities focused on rebuilding impacted infrastructure and implementing technical capabilities for identifying and protecting against the most immediate threats. We worked closely with leading cyber security authorities and other subject matter experts. The objective was to remove the intruder from the network, restrict privileged accounts and implement improved authentication, monitoring and domain management. Included in the scope of this effort were about 1,000 technical activities needed to protect customer, employee, supplier and USPS information.
CyberSafe — Once these key remediation activities were completed, a “CyberSafe at USPS” security awareness campaign was launched in June 2015. Its focus is to educate the postal community of employees, suppliers and customers through tips and other resources about cybersecurity threats and how they can help protect the USPS network and information. The Postal Service is turning to industry experts in developing content and also partnering with the Department of Homeland Security and promoting content from its “Stop. Think. Connect.” campaign.
CyberSafe at the Postal Service started internally with employees and includes a centralized website with tips and videos, new Web-based training focused on password security, information about how to identify and report phishing attacks, and an easy-to-remember email address to report incidents: cybersafe@usps.gov. This program will expand to include role-based training for those who have access to the USPS network and specific awareness messaging and training for suppliers and customers.
The campaign is one component of a comprehensive cybersecurity organizational training and awareness strategy designed to reduce risk. Goals include:
Keeping Postal Employees “Safe and Secure” — The Postal Service values its employees, and keeping them safe is a top priority. Postal Inspectors work closely with local postal leaders to develop prevention measures and provide guidance to postal employees on strategies to improve their safety while on the job. These measures include:
